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lATMNDOPA 




WHAT KIND OF A 
FIGHT ARE WE IN? 



BY 

ERNEST R. GROVES 

Author of 
'Rural Problems of Today," "Moral Sanitation/' etc. 




ASSOCIATION PRESS 

New York: 347 Madison Avenue 
1918 



'^' 



Copyright, 1918, by 

The International Committee of 

Young Men's Christian Associations 



JOL 20 lyiB: 

©CI.A499810 



~7.'M' ' ' ' 



DEDICATED TO 

All Wearers of the Red Triangle, Whose Self- 
forgetting AND Indispensable Service to the 
Soldiers and Sailors of the Allied Nations, Both 
IN Home Lands and Overseas, Has Become for All 
Time a Priceless Example of Spiritual Devotion 



CONTENTS 

I. The Moral Significance of the 

War 1 

II. The Conflict of Man Against 

Man 8 

III. Darwinism and Race Conflict. . 14 

IV. American Idealism 21 

V. German Retardation 30 

VI. Christianity and the War 35 

VII. Religion and the Future 40 



Chapter I 

THE MORAL SIGNIFICANCE OF 
THE WAR 

We are in the midst of what appears 
to be the supreme conflict in man's 
experience. With every passing day it 
becomes clearer that this German-be- 
gotten war is a peculiar and desperate 
attack upon the spiritual welfare of 
men and women everywhere. It is this 
fact which gives the present world 
struggle the significance of a moral 
plague. It is no contest for markets. 
Neither in race feeling nor religious 
antipathy can we find its roots. It is 
essentially a moral collision and one 
that forbids compromise. 

Germany, with diabolical fore- 
thought and skilful preparation, has 
attempted to bring to a fruitful victory, 
by any means possible, a philosophy of 
life which the better part of human 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

experience has most certainly repud- 
iated. It is this which makes the pres- 
ent ordeal, from which all peoples now 
suffer and for many years to come must 
continue to suffer, colossal in its moral 
consequences. 

Such a happening cannot be the event 
of a day, a strange ethical accident 
without history or cause. The Ger- 
mans also are of flesh and blood. Some 
false ideal must impel them. What 
deeply-planted and well-nourished im- 
pulse has caused them to break out 
upon the astonished nations as a people 
driven by the passion of a moral 
mutiny? The madness that has already 
changed an honored member of the 
family of nations into a moral outlaw 
must have a moral and spiritual ex- 
planation. It is of the greatest import- 
ance that we of America understand 
the moral causes of this conflict. It is 
not enough that we fight. We also must 
fight with moral discernment, lest in 



THE MORAL SIGNIFICANCE 

the process of fighting we ourselves be- 
come Germanized. With our allies we 
have become the custodians of the 
moral security of nations and we cannot 
exaggerate the importance of knowing 
the issues of this struggle. 

We are all familiar with the Dar- 
winian controversy that made so bitter 
and so unfortunate a division among 
thinking people about a generation ago. 
The world of thought was separated by 
a great gulf. For the most part relig- 
ious people were on one side and men 
of science on the other. The Church 
at the beginning fought against the evo- 
lutionary hypothesis and fought a los- 
ing fight. As we look back upon the 
controversy it seems as strange as it was 
unfortunate. As a matter of fact, this 
generation has not been perfectly fair 
to the religious leadership of fifty years 
ago. The Church had the right in- 
stinct in the controversy and perhaps 
its protest was more effective than is 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

generally considered. It failed merely 
in its form of attack. It had no fitness 
to engage in a debate of science. It did 
have, however, a solemn obligation to 
protest against science doing violence 
to the moral interpretation of human 
experience. 

Science v^as equally at fault. In the 
spirit of a belligerent it tried to deduce 
from man's animal history an interpre- 
tation of human characteristics and mo- 
tives that had already been outgrown 
by the fact of moral progress. And the 
protest of those who were guardians of 
human idealism was immediate and 
forceful. It also was unfortunately ex- 
pressed, for the issues were not clearly 
defined. Science won the victory, so 
far as the maintaining of its hypothe- 
sis of evolution was concerned. 

Science, however, had to modify its 
first teaching regarding Darwinism in 
order to do justice to the fact of man's 
social evolution. Indeed, Darwin him- 



THE MORAL SIGNIFICANCE 

self in the very beginning seems to have 
been fearful that his theory would be 
used as a basis for a brutal and one- 
sided view of human nature. And 
among his students were some — Drum- 
mond and Kropotkin for example — 
who from the first felt that the higher 
life even of the animals had been dis- 
torted by the interpretation made in 
the name of evolution by some of Dar- 
win's disciples. Drummond' insisted 
that mother-sacrifice, as well as 
struggle, had its place in animal devel- 
opment. Kropotkin' pointed out the 
importance of cooperation among ani- 
mals in their struggle for existence. In 
recent years science has come to see in 
the clearest way how differently we 
need to interpret man's social evolution 
from the way in which it was first con- 
structed by those who accepted the doc- 
trine of evolution. 



Henry Drummond, "The Ascent of Man.' 
Kropotkin, "Mutual Aid." 
5 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

The immediate effect of the Dar- 
winian theory was to stimulate that 
philosophy, always captivating to some, 
which pictures the association of men 
and women as a brutal struggle, differ- 
ent from animal competition only in its 
form. Man was portrayed as the su- 
preme animal, merely more powerful 
and better equipped than the others. 

Nowhere did this philosophy receive 
such hospitality as among the German- 
speaking peoples. When Darwinism, 
in the place of its birth, was first ap- 
plied to man's social life, it appeared 
as an attack upon the religious faith of 
mankind, a denial of Christianity, but 
in the German thinking it came to be 
itself religious, the indispensable ele- 
ment in a proper understanding of the 
ways of God. 

No German statement has ever made 
this clearer than the following: 

''The old churchmen preached of 
war as a just judgment of God. The 

6 



THE MORAL SIGNIFICANCE 

modern natural scientists see in war a 
propitious method of selection. They 
use different phrases, but they mean the 
same thing. A saying of the much-mis- 
understood Jesus, himself supreme in 
the comprehension of life — a saying 
whose profound wisdom Darwin has 
again enabled us to grasp — is the con- 
cise expression of all development: 
*Many are called, but few are chosen.' '" 



•Wagner, "Krieg." pp. 145, 146. Quoted by Thayer 
\in "Out of Their Own Mouths." pp. 75, 76. 



Chapter II 

THE CONFLICT OF MAN AGAINST 

MAN 

Nietzsche has been one of the most 
popular of German writers. He ap- 
plied the theory of competition to the 
group life of men and women. It is 
true that Nietzsche refused to admit 
that he was a follower of Darwin and 
in a most characteristic fashion he at- 
tempted to belittle the influence Dar- 
win's theory had upon his thinking. As 
a matter of fact, however, in Nietz- 
sche's teaching we find the idea of 
struggle and survival applied to the or- 
dinary relations of life. In studying 
him we enter the familiar atmosphere 
of brutal conflict. His originality is in 
the form he gives his thought and in the 
frank way he teaches the doctrine that 
in human relationships the supreme vir- 
tue is power. 



CONFLICT OF MAN AGAINST MAN 

He denies the obligation of the 
strong to the weak, regards pity as a 
fault, and makes war a virtue. He was 
a gifted writer and it was natural that 
his fascinating application of Darwin- 
ian ethics to the ordinary affairs of life 
should among German peoples com- 
mand attention and finally become pop- 
ular. In every country he has had some 
following, for everywhere there are 
some who can see in the evolutionary 
process merely the element of survival 
through struggle and who regard suc- 
cessful competition as the supreme 
good in human association. In Ger- 
many, however, Nietzsche has been 
very popular and without doubt his 
teaching has had some part in making 
this terrible world war possible. His 
teaching is most significant as a revela- 
tion of the philosophy of struggle that 
has so captivated German thinking. 

It was logical for Nietzsche to make 
a bitter attack upon Christianity, for it 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

had become the strongest protest 
against the supremacy of selfishness and 
force in human relationships. He saw 
in Christianity the enemy of his doc- 
trine and his vision was clear. Relig- 
ion may not go down with the en- 
thronement of the philosophy of 
struggle, but Christianity must. Be- 
tween two such different doctrines of 
morality there can be no compromise. 
The Golden Rule is an infinite distance 
from the ethics of the superman as pic- 
tured by Nietzsche. 

The following quotations are repre- 
sentative of Nietzsche's attitude 
toward Christianity: 

"I call Christianity the one great 
curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, 
the one great instinct of revenge, for 
which no expedient is sufficiently pois- 
onous, secret, subterranean, mean — I 
call it the one immortal blemish of 
mankind." 

^That which deifies me, that which 
makes me stand apart from the whole 

10 



CONFLICT OF MAN AGAINST MAN 

of the rest of humanity is the fact that 
I have unmasked Christian morality. 

. . . . Christian morality is the 
most malignant form of all falsehood, 
the actual Circe of humanity, that 
which has corrupted mankind."' 

"Have I yet to say that in the whole 
New Testament only a single figure ap- 
pears, which one is obliged to honor — 
Pilate, the Roman governor. To take 
a Jewish afifair seriously, he will not be 
persuaded to do so. A Jew more or less 
— what does that matter? The noble 
scorn of a Roman before whom a 
shameless misuse of the word truth was 
carried on has enriched the New Testa- 
ment with the sole expression which has 
value — which is itself its criticism, its 
annihilation. What is truth?"' 

Nietzsche was as friendly toward 
war as he was hostile to Christianity. 
The following statements of his in re- 
gard to war and warriors have become 
familiar because their significance has 
caused them to be often quoted : 



"Ecce Homo," p. 354, p. 139. 
"Antichrist," p. 316. 

11 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

'^Ye shall love peace as a means to 
new wars, and the short peace better 
than the long. 

I do not advise you to work, but to 
fight. I do not advise you to conclude 
peace, but to conquer. Let your work 
be a fight, your peace a victory!" 

^'Ye say a good cause will hallow 
even war. I say unto you : a good war 
halloweth every cause. 

War and courage have done more 
great things than charity. Not your 
pity, but your bravery, hath hitherto 
saved those who had met with an acci- 
dent." 

"They call you heartless, but your 
heart is genuine, and I love the shame 
of your heartiness. Ye are ashamed of 
your tide, and others are ashamed of 
their ebb. 

Ye are ugly. Well then, my breth- 
ren! Wrap the sublime round your- 
selves, the mantle of what is ugly! 

And when your soul waxeth great, it 
waxeth haughty and in your sublimity 
there is wickedness. I know you."' 

'"Thus Spake Zarathustra" (Tille tr.), p. 60. 
12 



CONFLICT OF MAN AGAINST MAN 

The popularity of such teaching is 
proof that it contained an agreeable 
doctrine. It was a vigorous branch 
from the main trunk which supported 
German political thought and which 
drew its nourishment from roots im- 
bedded in an archaic interpretation of 
evolution. Such teaching, therefore, 
added its contribution to the insid- 
ious mass that permeated the national 
thinking of Germany until the policy 
of a great empire became a moral men- 
ace to all nations. 



13 



Chapter III 

DARWINISM AND RACE 
CONFLICT 

Nietzsche applied the Darwinian 
conflict to individual life and denied 
the moral claims of pity, sympathy, and 
sacrifice. An Austrian scholar and 
scientist, Gumplowicz, one of the great- 
est of European sociologists, inter- 
preted the relationship of nations in the 
same spirit and built up a theory of 
race conflict upon the Darwinian hy- 
pothesis. In the strongest terms he de- 
clared himself a pessimist in world- 
philosophy and made the chief corner- 
stone of his system the statement that 
the social life of men is unchanging, 
fixed by " ^eternal iron laws' as truly as 
the stars in their courses." Optimists 
in world philosophy who expect to im- 
prove human association for the wel- 
fare of men and women are never genu- 

14 



DARWINISM AND RACE CONFLICT 

ine scientists. In other words, science 
reveals man's relationships as merely 
animal in spirit, even necessarily bru- 
tal, and only ignorance and foolish con- 
ceit give one hope of ever changing the 
unhappy but fixed social order of hu- 
man experience. 

Especially stupid are those kindly 
persons who look forward to a time 
when nations will deal kindly and just- 
ly with one another and in the spirit of 
good understanding live at peace. To 
indulge in the thoughts of such a benev- 
olent program for the peoples of the 
earth as an event ever likely to happen 
even in the distant future is merely to 
set reason and experience aside, and, in 
disregard of the clearest revelations of 
science, to accept the intoxicating 
pleasures of social and political day- 
dreaming. 

This doctrine is expressed in charac- 
teristic fashion in the following quota- 
tions from Gumplowicz: 

15 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

"Nothing impresses thinking men so 
seriously as the contemplation of the 
social struggle, for its immorality of- 
fends their moral feelings deeply. In- 
dividuals can consider ethical require- 
ments, they have consciences, but socie- 
ties have none. They overfall their vic- 
tims like avalanches with irresistible 
destroying power. All societies, large 
and small, retain the character of wild 
hordes in considering every means good 
which succeeds. Who would look for 
fidelity, veracity, and conscience in the 
intercourse of the ^most civilized' states 
of the world ?"^ 

"However cordial the personal rela- 
tions of the monarchs, not one will cease 
arming. It is felt instinctively that 
with the first favorable opportunity any 
state will pounce like a wild beast upon 
a defenseless victim. Indeed, it is gen- 
erally recognized that states oppose 
each other like savage hordes ; that they 
follow the blind laws of nature; that 
no ethical law or moral obligation, only 
the fear of the stronger, holds them in 



'The Outlines of Sociology" (Moore tr.), P- 146. 
16 



DARWINISM AND RACE CONFLICT 

check; and that neither right nor law, 
treaty nor league, can restrain the 
stronger from seeking its own interests 
when the opportunity is offered. 

The same is true of the struggle of 
the social groups in general. It is con- 
ducted not by individuals but by socie- 
ties and communities."' 

It is folly to criticize those who are 
forced to lead nations into these perfid- 
ious struggles, for they are personally 
blameless, since they are captives in a 
cosmic system that offers them no 
choice. There is no mistaking this po- 
sition of Gumplowicz, which he states 
as follows: 

^'But these ^perfidious' struggles do 
not show the individuals to be utterly 
base. They only prove that in the 
struggle of the wholes individual opin- 
ions play no part, that here social 
groups struggle inexorably to satisfy 
their own interests, to demonstrate 
their own power. Blind natural law 

» Ibid. p. 147. 

17 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

controls the actions of savage hordes, 
of states, and of societies."' 

The conquest of the weak nation by 
the strong is inevitable and the protest 
comes only from those who suffer what 
they would inflict were they in turn 
powerful enough to do so. This cruel 
interpretation of national survival 
Gumplowicz expresses in these words : 

^'So long as a compact and powerful 
body politic finds itself in the midst of 
weaker states it will continue its policy 
of conquest and annexation to the last 
possible limit, as Rome did in Italy 
and as Russia is doing in the East where 
its neighbors are weak and loosely. or- 
ganized. 

If all are equally powerful so that no 
one can hope to overthrow any other 
one, then two or more will form alli- 
ances in order to conquer the selected 
object of attack. If a weaker state hap- 
pens to be neighbor to several more 
powerful, it must supplement its 
strength by alliances or they will not 

• Ibid. p. 148. 

18 



DARWINISM AND RACE CONFLICT 

fail to partition it among themselves. 
No code of private morals can success- 
fully oppose; even the men v^ho are 
individually the most exemplary are 
forced to act in harmony v^ith their 
surroundings. The scruples of indi- 
vidual feeling and sentiment are un- 
known in politics; as Emperor Francis 
said : The state has no daughter.' 

Political conditions are peremptory. 
Natural law prevails though the will 
of the individual seems to be ^free.' 
Those who sufifer speak of 'crimes.' As 
well call an earthquake by which thou- 
sands have perished a crime, for the 
only difference is that in the one case 
we think we see the responsible agents 
while in the other we can find none."* 

It is impossible to estimate the influ- 
ence of this Austrian thinker upon the 
social ideals of the rulers and peoples 
of Germany and Austria, but in the 
light of the events that have forced this 
world-conflict upon suffering peoples 
and the unspeakable indifference to eth- 



Ibid. p. 151. 

19 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

ical and humane obligations manifested 
by the leaders of the Central Powers, 
it certainly seems that, whether Gum- 
plowicz influenced much or little Ger- 
manic political thought, he disclosed its 
philosophic basis. His system is at 
least a characteristic expression of the 
same brutal disregard of the moral de- 
mands of human relationship that has 
so shocked and prostrated the political 
idealism of the neutral world. 



20 



Chapter IV 
AMERICAN IDEALISM 

The national consciousness of Ger- 
many has been fattened for years upon 
false inferences from the Darwinian 
theory of evolution. The American 
finds difficulty in appreciating this, 
since his idealism has been drawn from 
so different a source. Morality among 
nations cannot be secured, however, 
until there is widespread confidence in 
the reasonableness of the American 
ideal. To establish this confidence it 
is first necessary to put emphasis upon 
the happier and more humane interpre- 
tations of the evolutionary process, as 
it is now best understood by science. 

Recent science has made competition 
between animals a minor element in the 
struggle for survival and has disclosed 
as the fundamental element in the pro- 
cess the adjustment of the organism to 

21 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

the demands of the environment. If 
this interpretation of animal evolution 
be used as a basis for the understanding 
of the social problems of men and 
women, the result is both happier and 
more just than that first made by Dar- 
v^inian thought. This later construc- 
tion gives an opportunity for the exer- 
cise of the higher moral qualities that 
man has regarded throughout historic 
time as most characteristic of him. Em- 
phasis upon the competitive element, on 
the other hand, interprets man as be- 
longing in the field of endless conflict, 
where the hand of every one is against 
his neighbor amid such conditions of 
life as make the idealism of the New 
Testament nothing more than a treach- 
erous mirage. 

The way of escape from this picture 
of cosmic immorality is through a 
healthier and more reasonable attitude 
regarding the significance of man's 
social life. The German people, the 

22 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 

German thinkers even, do not hold to 
their pessimistic portrayal of the limi- 
tations of human associations, except in 
the territory of national relationships. 
It is only in his national interests that 
man must remain a brute. Germans, 
like other people, have realized the 
value of cooperation among human be- 
ings and the necessity of charity and 
sympathy. Their uncomfortable theory 
of animal conflict has, however, made 
it next to impossible for them to dis- 
cover that the scientific basis for their 
practical cooperation and benevolence 
in the ordinary walks of life is an equal- 
ly reliable support for justice and 
friendliness among nations. 

No American author has stated the 
German fallacy more clearly than did 
the famous scientist, Lester Ward. He 
was of the generation of Darwin and 
Huxley and in scientific preparation no 
one had a better right to take part in the 
discussion concerning the meaning of 

2Z 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

organic evolution. His teaching, born 
of intimate knowledge in regard to the 
facts as reported by science, was dia- 
metrically the opposite of that which so 
gripped German popular thought. 

No one has more forcefully stated 
this opposition than Gumplowicz, nor 
with greater respect. It was a dramatic 
meeting that took place between Gum- 
plowicz and Ward at Graz in 1903, 
when, for the first time, Gumplowicz 
felt the force of an optimism built upon 
science. In most generous fashion 
Gumplowicz himself has stated this 
fact in the following tribute :' 

"To confess the truth at once, before 
I was aware, he had stormed my prin- 
cipal pessimistic position, and as I took 
leave of him at the station late in the 
evening, after a half-day's debate, I had 
the feeling that I had made the acquain- 
tance of an intellectual giant of a type 
that I had never before met in reality. 

*An Austrian Appreciation of Lester F. Ward, 
American Journal of Sociology, March, 1905, p. 646 

24 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 

Since that time I am studying his works 
with quite other feelings from those 
with which I read them before. To be 
sure, no man can change his fundamen- 
tal spiritual tone, nor can one easily get 
rid of a world-view which is a product 
of a long life. Perhaps one can never 
get rid of it. But I am free to confess 
that in place of the former feeling of 
confidence in my own views, perhaps of 
my own superiority to a 'utopian,' there 
had come a feeling of hesitation, still 
more a feeling of admiration for a 
Menschheits-Idealismus, of which we 
Europeans (with the exception of 
Franz Oppenheimer) are entirely in- 
capable." 

American idealism is nourished by 
confidence in man's ability to construct 
an international relationship that will 
be far removed from the brutal Dar- 
winian struggle for existence. This 
confidence is the daily bread that feeds 
our national thinking. No author has 
given us a greater sense of security with 
reference to social and international op- 

25 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

timism than Ward. As early as 1888 
he stated in clear form in the following 
words the basis of the American assur- 
ance :' 

"But how shall we distinguish this 
human, or anthropic, method from the 
method of nature? Simply by revers- 
ing all the definitions. Art is the antith- 
esis of nature. If we call one the nat- 
ural method we must call the other 
the artificial method. If nature's pro- 
cess is rightly named natural selection, 
man's process is artificial selection. 
The survival of the fittest is simply the 
survival of the strong, which implies, 
and might as well be called, the de- 
struction of the weak. And if nature 
progresses through the destruction of 
the weak, man progresses through the 
protection of the weak. This is the es- 
sential distinction. 

In human society the psychic power 
has operated to secure the protection 
of the weak in two distinct ways : first, 
by increasing the supply of the necessi- 



^ Mind as a Social Factor, "Glimpses of the Cos- 
mos." Vol. Ill, p. 371. 

26 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 

ties of life, and, secondly, by preventing 
the destruction of life through the ene- 
mies of man. The immediate instru- 
mentality through which the first of 
these processes is carried on is art, the 
product of invention. The second 
process takes place through the estab- 
lishment of positive institutions." 

"Art operates to protect the w^eak 
against adverse surroundings. It is di- 
rected against natural forces, chiefly 
physical. By thus defeating the de- 
structive influences of the elements and 
hostile forms of life, and by forcing na- 
ture to yield an unnatural supply of 
man's necessities, many who would 
have succumbed from inability to re- 
sist these adverse agencies — the feebler 
members of society — were able to sur- 
vive, and population increased and ex- 
panded. While no one openly denies 
this, there is a tendency either to ignore 
it in politico-economic discussions, or 
to deny its application to them as an 
answer to naturalistic arguments. 

If, on the other hand, we inquire into 
the nature of human institutions, we 
shall perceive that they are of three 

27 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

kinds, tending to protect the weak in 
three ways, or ascending degrees. 
These three successively higher means 
through which this end is attained are, 
first. Justice, second. Morality, and 
third. Charity. These forms of action 
have been reached through the devel- 
opment, respectively, of the three cor- 
responding sentiments : Equity, Benef- 
icence, and Benevolence. 

All of these altruistic sentiments are 
wholly unknown, or known only in the 
merest embryo, to all animals below 
man, and therefore no such means of 
protection exist among them. They are 
strictly human, or anthropic. Many 
evolutionists fail to recognize this. 
Some sociologists refuse to admit it. 
They look about and see so much injus- 
tice, immorality, and rapacity that they 
are led to suppose that only natural 
methods are in operation in society. 
This is a great mistake. In point of 
fact, the keener the sense of justice the 
more conspicuous the diminishing num- 
ber of violations of it come to appear, 
and conversely, the obviousness of in- 
justice proves the general prevalence 

28 



AMERICAN IDEALISM 

of justice. It is the same with morality 
and philanthropy."' 

In speaking of the future supremacy 
of the psychic method of evolution, 
Ward says: 

"These ends will be secured in pro- 
portion as the true nature of mind is 
understood. When nature comes to be 
regarded as passive and man as active, 
instead of the reverse as now, when 
human action is recognized as the most 
important of all forms of action, and 
when the power of the human intellect 
over vital, psychic, and social phenome- 
na is practically conceded, then, and 
then only, can man justly claim to have 
risen out of the animal and fully to 
have entered the human stage of de- 
velopment."* 



' Ibid. p. 372. 
* Ibid. p. 377. 

29 



Chapter V 
GERMAN RETARDATION 

Why has German nationalism clung 
so tenaciously to the theory of brutal 
survival? This question comes to the 
mind of every reader, but at the present 
time it cannot receive a satisfactory 
answer. Without doubt it will remain 
a puzzle for historians, psychologists, 
and students of public affairs for many 
years to come — perhaps for centuries. 
In matters of international relationship 
German leaders have done their think- 
ing on the level of a survival philoso- 
phy which the representative thought 
of the other modern nations has dis- 
carded. It appears as if the final in- 
dictment against German leadership 
would be that it is guilty of moral re- 
tardation. Of course this situation 
must have some explanation. Already 

30 



GERMAN RETARDATION 

it is possible to discern some of the 
causes that have led this powerful na- 
tion, progressive in its use of the re- 
sources of modern life, to linger behind 
its neighbors in international idealism. 
There is some evidence that the Prus- 
sian people represent the most bellig- 
erent group of the great fighting race, 
the Teutons. The French, English, and 
German nationalities include the same 
fundamental racial stocks, but the Ger- 
manic peoples appear closer to the 
primitive racial type, at least in their 
traditions, and indeed some of their 
writers are boastful of this fact. As, 
for example, ^^The Teutonic race is 
called to circle the earth with its rule, 
to exploit the treasures of nature and 
of human labor power, and to make the 
passive races servient elements in its 
cultural development."' Close contact 
with less advanced races tends to devel- 



^Ludwig Woltmann, "Politische Anthropologic." 
Quoted in "Out of Their Own Mouths," p. 70. 

31 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

op in the superior race a strong race 
consciousness and it may well be that 
the German peoples emphasize their 
Teutonic characteristics because of 
their close association with the Slavic 
population of Russia. 

The recent historical experiences of 
the German peoples explain in part the 
retrogressive spirit of their nationalism. 
Napoleon, by cruelly crushing them, 
made them feel deeply the defenceless- 
ness of a country politically divided 
and lacking in military preparedness. 
In the days of Bismarck they came into 
political unity by a most successful war 
against France, which was manufac- 
tured by him through an act of treach- 
ery for the purpose of Prussianizing 
the empire. Social Darwinism, as a 
philosophy of national welfare, seemed 
proven by the sufferings of the country 
under Napoleon; the same theory of 
the necessity of brutal struggle between 
nations saved their national conscience 

Z2 



GERMAN RETARDATION 

from accepting criticism for their ill- 
treatment of France. 

There appears to be proof also that 
great commercial interests, such as 
Krupps, which profit by war and prep- 
arations for war, have used money to 
popularize the doctrine of race con- 
flict/ 

Without question, however, the chief 
cause of Germany's political retarda- 
tion, so far as present knowledge can 
reveal such causes, is to be found in the 
teaching of her schools and universities. 
These have been controlled by the state 
and this has permitted them to become 
the instrument for advancing the ambi- 
tion of the Prussian autocracy. Of 
course, if nations are without moral ob- 
ligations and exist in an environment 
of perpetual conflict, the wise nation 
will maintain the political organization 
best fitted to protect a nation under such 



Todd, "Theories of Social Progress," p. 275. 
33 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

circumstances. Without doubt, to 
people thinking in the atmosphere of 
social Darwinism there could be no es- 
cape from the conclusion that the best 
political organization for military 
strength was an autocracy. To be sure, 
not all German thinking has accepted 
this proposition. Indeed, it may be 
sometime proved that the occasion of 
this bitter European struggle was the 
realization of the autocratic leaders 
that there was a growing opposition to 
the accepted theory, led by those who 
had been educated in the world of class- 
experience rather than in the universi- 
ties. In that case it will be revealed 
that the only object of the war was to 
establish with greater security the rule 
of the Prussian autocracy. 



34 



Chapter VI 
CHRISTIANITY AND THE WAR 

We have long since traveled beyond 
the question, ''Can Christians fight?" 
As Christians we must fight against this 
desperate attack upon the foundations 
of the moral security of nations and 
peoples. We are now asking a new 
question, "What effect will the war 
have upon religion?" 

It is folly to suppose that we can pass 
through so horrible an ordeal as this 
present war, an experience that has al- 
ready made profound changes in many 
departments of life, without feeling 
some influence from it in our religion. 

It has been difficult for the non- 
German peoples to realize the inability 
of religion to protect civilization from 
what this war has brought forth. We 
still suffer as from a moral shock, for 
we had taken it for granted that Chris- 

35 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

tianity had too firm a hold of the 
motives of all peoples professing it to 
permit the events that are already re- 
corded. It is to be expected, therefore, 
that many will, at least for the time, 
doubt the moral vitality of Christian- 
ity. We can by no means escape from 
the difficulty by saying that Christian- 
ity has not failed because it has not 
been tried. The problem is, Why has 
it not been tried? Is its program a 
mere religious day-dreaming experi- 
ence, an emotional refuge that can pro- 
tect us from life but cannot protect us 
in life? We must expect such ques- 
tions to be asked. Indeed, who has not 
asked them in his own deepest thought- 
fulness? 

It would be unwise for us not to 
realize the significance of such ques- 
tions. In times past they would not 
have been asked at all, for they would 
have had no force. In earlier periods 
in man's history everything that has 

36 



CHRISTIANITY AND THE WAR 

happened in this war would have been 
taken for granted as bound to occur if 
within the ingenuity of man. Our 
moral shock is proof positive of our 
moral progress. Indeed we have sub- 
stantial proof that Christianity can 
control the natural passions of men in 
even so great a moral catastrophe as 
this from which we suffer. Every time 
an English boat rescues the survivors 
from a sinking German submarine, 
tribute is paid to the dominance that 
Christian principles still exercise over 
the hearts of sorely-tempted men. 

Indeed, it looks as if Christianity had 
all but saved the world from so terrible 
a conflict and that our consciousness of 
this is the root of our bitter dis- 
appointment. The failure is none the 
less real because it was so nearly pre- 
vented. Where has been the difficulty? 

Has it not been in the desire of men 
and women to place the emphasis in 
religion upon something else than ac- 

Z7 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

tivity? We have had too much of the 
brutal survival-conception in our or- 
dinary associations of life to feel the 
necessity of discarding the theory in 
our international relations. We have 
taken kindly to other definitions of 
Christian faith than that w^hich insists 
that faith is such confidence in God's 
moral absoluteness as leads men and 
women into right relations with one 
another. This conception of faith is a 
morally expensive program, since it de- 
mands action — at least the desire for 
action — and many there are who pre- 
fer an easier program. 

Christianity will need to make great- 
er demands upon the doings of men and 
women from now on, or it cannot main- 
tain its position as the supreme moral 
influence in life. As Christianity leads 
men and women away from animal, 
away from primitive, away from pa- 
gan levels of conduct to higher and 
higher forms of human association, 

38 



CHRISTIANITY AND THE WAR 

it has to increase its demands at 
each step of progress. It cannot with 
moral safety permit its followers to lin- 
ger even on high levels, when the reve- 
lation of human needs discloses new 
heights that can be attained. 

The great nations of the earth are in 
desperate need of a new disclosure of 
compelling Christian idealism. In 
each social wrongs have been too long 
endured. Ethical conventions and so- 
cial attitudes have been outgrown and 
no longer fit the needs created by mod- 
ern habits of life. The moral level of 
yesterday is no longer safe. The war 
points out to Christianity its present 
task. It must provide motive power 
to draw both nations and individuals 
above the moral level of Darwinian 
conduct. 



39 



Chapter VII 

RELIGION AND THE FUTURE 

Will Prussianism reach its goal? 

At this moment when the armies are 
in deadly and uncertain grip on the 
Western front no man knows. It is 
true that the God of battles often seems 
to be on the side of the heavier artillery. 
Nevertheless it is difficult to imagine a 
German victory. 

As a spiritual conquest the German 
program is, however, impossible. Man 
does not go backward, even if he moves 
forward with painful slowness. Man 
will not return to the atmosphere of 
animal struggle from which he has so 
largely escaped. 

Only the moral atheist, who believes 
in the morality neither of God nor of 
man, can have misgivings at this point. 
Against the dominance for any length 

40 



RELIGION AND THE FUTURE 

of time of the cruel, survival code for 
national and individual conduct, even 
were the Krupp guns to bring a Ger- 
man peace, there remain two insur- 
mountable obstacles. 

In the first line of defence stands 
man. Stripped of all pretense, famil- 
iar with both evil and good, with the 
shadow of his primitive past thrown 
upon him to hamper his vision, never- 
theless he stands firm against a por- 
trayal of his nature that forbids his 
moral growth. For a moment he may 
forget his spiritual promise under the 
stress of national passion produced by 
clever, reprehensible ambition, but not 
for long. Led by deceit to support the 
malicious program in the delusion that 
he fights merely for national self- 
protection, sooner or later he will see 
clearly his moral betrayal. In that day, 
with all the moral vigor that he has 
gathered from his first day until now, 
he will turn upon his moral seducers 

41 



WHAT KIND OF A FIGHT? 

and execute the judgment of spiritual 
repudiation. 

Behind man stands God. Not the 
pagan God of man's childhood whom 
we are glad to forget, but the God of 
Christ who has given surety of His con- 
fidence in man's moral worth. We 
would not infringe His purposes, for 
well we know that His ways are not 
our ways nor His thoughts our 
thoughts, but in a contest between man 
at a low level and man at his highest 
we can hardly believe in God at all 
and suppose that the final issues of such 
a spiritual struggle are in doubt. It is 
stupid skepticism that trembles, fear- 
ful of the moral destiny of the universe 
of God. 



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